BEYOND - The Veuve Clicquot Journey by Fabrica

BEYOND - The Veuve Clicquot Journey by Fabrica

1 July 2016

This year celebrates the 200th Anniversary of one of Madame Clicquot’s most lasting inventions, the Riddling Table.
On this occasion, the Maison’s innovative spirit was honored during the 2016 Milan Design Week with BEYOND – an exhibition in collaboration with the prestigious Fabrica Art Academy & Research Center.

Veuve Clicquot, the most audacious and innovative Champagne House, chose the unconventional creativity of Fabrica, the communication research centre of the Benetton Group, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of its first design invention during 2016 Milano Design Week. This invention that revolutionised the méthode champenoise is the table de remuage — forerunner of today’s riddling table — where the bottles are tilted and turned to obtain a clear, pure wine. This celebration paid homage, above all, to the passion, intelligence and determination of its inventor Madame Clicquot. Widowed at 27, she took over the reins of her husband’s business, becoming one of the first female entrepreneurs of the modern age.

With BEYOND, The Veuve Clicquot Journey by Fabrica, visitors were drawn into an exploration of real and imaginary landscapes, in an exclusive setting that epitomised the concept of the journey. It opened its doors to the public for one day only at The Royal Pavilion of Milan Central Station.

Inspired by the visionary Madame Clicquot and her bold desire for exploration, the three environments contained installations recalling the places, moments and facts that have made Veuve Clicquot one of the most important Champagne Houses:

THE ABYSS

Forever linked to the story of the company from its foundation, when Philippe Clicquot established a “négoce de vins” that would trade beyond frontiers, choosing the anchor, a symbol of hope, as a trademark for the corks of his bottles.

The sea was crucial to the firm’s triumphant success in Russia when, in 1814, Madame Clicquot bravely challenged the trade embargo of the time and managed to bring her wines to the court of the Tsar in St. Petersburg.

The sea, too, in 2010 cast up some bottles of Veuve Clicquot that had been lost in a shipwreck off Finland’s Aland Islands. Despite having been on the seabed for nearly two centuries, the bottles were in an excellent state of conservation, bearing witness to the exceptional quality of the company’s wines from the earliest times.

THE “CRAYÈRES”

The chalk caves — an invaluable network created between the Gallo-Roman era and the 18th century, today a Unesco world heritage site, 24 km underneath the soil of Champagne. These are the heart and soul of the House, where their bottles lie and where the table de remuage is located.

THE UNIVERSE

Representing a yet-to-be explored territory and a future to be discovered, as well as a clear reference tothe cometthat crossed the sky of Champagne in 1811, harbinger of an excellent harvest. From it, Madame Clicquot produced an exceptional vintage, the “Vin de la Comète”, which carried her fame worldwide, bearing witness to her motto “only one quality, the finest”.